August on the island

Busy beach today!

Have now settled into our house on the island and I got out to the beach yesterday for two little paintings. I knew this one would be a difficult scene to tackle but believe that you have to take these risks in order to grow.
As the tide came in the beach got smaller and smaller and so of course more crowded as all the sunbathers moved up and up! I really wanted to describe the mass of people on the beach and in the sea without attempting to paint the individual figures. For the closest people, this side of the row of rocks I have paid more attention to the shape of individuals. Those on the other side of the rocks are just dots and dabs using a few choice colours, particularly a sun bronzed skin colour as I judged that to be the majority colour!
I think that you only need to provide so much information and then if your viewer stands a few feet away from the painting their brain fills in the rest and they see not the individual paint marks but a lot of people on a beach.

Le dernier jour

Le dernier jour

For my last afternoon of my last day the sun shone! Hooray!
I was able to get out with my easel and found this fantastic view looking down towards the Guerzido beach. Usually I can't paint this view as there is a high stone wall running alongside the path down to the beach, but as luck would have it a large wooden gate is broken and lying flat on the ground.
I knew I had to paint from this spot as it could well be fixed again by summer, making this view private once again.
I'm not sure what to call this painting, maybe something about the private view? Or 'le dernier jour' to remind me of the week it rained and rained until the last day when the sun came out.